{"id":40169,"date":"2024-11-11T17:06:48","date_gmt":"2024-11-11T18:06:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=40169"},"modified":"2025-12-03T07:24:49","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T07:24:49","slug":"covid-inquiry-told-treasury-blocked-nhs-bed-request","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=40169","title":{"rendered":"Covid inquiry told Treasury blocked NHS bed request"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-component=\"byline-block\" class=\"sc-3b6b161a-0 dPVOKT\">\n<div data-testid=\"byline-new\" class=\"sc-573fa0e8-0 bWRWzH\">\n<div class=\"sc-573fa0e8-1 bNZQpT\">11 November 2024<\/p>\n<p><button disabled type=\"button\" aria-label=\"Share\" class=\"sc-28fdc07f-2 sc-28fdc07f-5 sc-28fdc07f-6 fQbEOM dSGHyC kuBZLr\"><span data-testid=\"button-icon-wrapper\" class=\"sc-28fdc07f-0 sjpOl\"><\/span><span data-testid=\"button-text\" aria-hidden=\"false\" class=\"sc-28fdc07f-1 fpFxhF\">Share<\/span><\/button><button disabled type=\"button\" aria-label=\"Save\" data-action=\"save\" class=\"sc-28fdc07f-2 sc-28fdc07f-5 sc-28fdc07f-6 ejnpYO dWrhlh kycDtY\"><span data-testid=\"button-icon-wrapper\" class=\"sc-28fdc07f-0 sjpOl\"><\/span><span data-testid=\"button-text\" aria-hidden=\"false\" class=\"sc-28fdc07f-1 fpFxhF\">Save<\/span><\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><span data-testid=\"byline-new-contributors\" class=\"sc-573fa0e8-11 cOQNNv\"><\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"byline-new-contributors-contributor-0\" class=\"sc-573fa0e8-5 gXJgDY\">\n<p><span class=\"sc-573fa0e8-7 gqeTMs\">Jim Reed<\/span><span data-testid=\"byline-new-contributors-contributor-0-role-location\" class=\"sc-573fa0e8-8 bIfajQ\">Health reporter, BBC News<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p><button disabled type=\"button\" aria-label=\"Share\" class=\"sc-28fdc07f-2 sc-28fdc07f-5 sc-28fdc07f-6 fQbEOM dSGHyC kuBZLr\"><span data-testid=\"button-icon-wrapper\" class=\"sc-28fdc07f-0 sjpOl\"><\/span><span data-testid=\"button-text\" aria-hidden=\"false\" class=\"sc-28fdc07f-1 fpFxhF\">Share<\/span><\/button><button disabled type=\"button\" aria-label=\"Save\" data-action=\"save\" class=\"sc-28fdc07f-2 sc-28fdc07f-5 sc-28fdc07f-6 ejnpYO dWrhlh kycDtY\"><span data-testid=\"button-icon-wrapper\" class=\"sc-28fdc07f-0 sjpOl\"><\/span><span data-testid=\"button-text\" aria-hidden=\"false\" class=\"sc-28fdc07f-1 fpFxhF\">Save<\/span><\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<figure>\n<div data-component=\"image-block\" class=\"sc-3b6b161a-0 eRlINq\">\n<div data-testid=\"hero-image\" class=\"sc-5340b511-1 cMIbKV\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/7969d9b0-a051-11ef-b85d-8308f0c90f52.jpg.webp\" loading=\"eager\" alt=\"Covid inquiry Headshot of Amanda Pritchard giving evidence to the Covid inquiry\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA\" \/><span class=\"sc-5340b511-2 jVqbAn\">Covid inquiry<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<div data-component=\"text-block\" class=\"sc-3b6b161a-0 dPVOKT\">\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Boris Johnson\u2019s government blocked a request to fund another 10,000 hospital beds at the height of the Covid pandemic, the chief executive of NHS England has said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Amanda Pritchard told the UK Covid-19 Inquiry the decision, made by the Treasury in July 2020, had been \u201cvery disappointing\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Extra beds and staff would have been used to cut waiting lists for planned care and \u201cbuild resilience\u201d going into a second winter wave of the pandemic, she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The government has said it cannot comment while the inquiry is in progress.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-component=\"text-block\" class=\"sc-3b6b161a-0 dPVOKT\">\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Health ministers from the time are expected to give evidence later this month, to the third section of the inquiry, looking at Covid&#8217;s impact on the NHS and healthcare systems across the UK.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Ms Pritchard served as NHS England\u2019s chief operating officer from 2019 until she was promoted to chief executive, in August 2021.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">In her evidence, she said a request had been made to the government, for 10,000 extra permanent, staffed hospital beds, in July 2020.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"sc-f98b1ad2-0 gXmhTb\">\u2018Very disappointing\u2019<\/h2>\n<div data-component=\"text-block\" class=\"sc-3b6b161a-0 dPVOKT\">\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The demand had been based on modelling the spread of the virus, along with the need to deal with other pressures that coming winter and resume more planned, or elective, surgery and other treatments for non-Covid patients.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">But the inquiry heard the Treasury and the prime minister\u2019s private office had refused the request, saying they wanted more use made of temporary Nightingale hospitals along with the private sector.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">And Ms Prichard had been told the decision would be looked at again as part of a wider spending review expected in the autumn of 2021.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">She called the decision \u201cvery disappointing\u201d, saying waiting lists for planned NHS treatment in England would be in \u201cquite a different position\u201d today had the extra funding been agreed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">\u201cIf we had had that capacity, we could certainly have treated thousands more patients\u2026 as well as being more resilient going into the second wave of the pandemic and into winter more generally,\u201d Ms Prichard said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">In the summer of 2020, the NHS in England had a total permanent bed capacity to treat about 95,000 patients in acute hospitals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">That was increased by another 4,000 from winter 2023, under a recovery plan agreed by then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"sc-f98b1ad2-0 gXmhTb\">\u2018Completely overwhelming\u2019<\/h2>\n<div data-component=\"text-block\" class=\"sc-3b6b161a-0 dPVOKT\">\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Later in her evidence, Ms Pritchard said the health service had faced a period of \u201cextreme pressure\u201d in the winter of 2020-21, as another wave of Covid spread across the country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">By that point, new treatments had been discovered, including the cheap steroid dexamethasone, and the first Covid vaccines were starting to be rolled out in small numbers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">But the level of community transmission at the time meant some intensive-care units were still being pushed \u201cto the brink\u201d and were \u201cright on the edge\u201d of running out of bed space.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Nationally, the health service had never had to \u201csystematically limit\u201d access to treatments because hospitals could not cope with demand, Ms Pritchard said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">\u201cThat does not mean, though, that it did not feel completely overwhelming to staff at this time in those places &#8211; and it does not mean that the kind of care that was being provided was anything like normal,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"sc-f98b1ad2-0 gXmhTb\">&#8216;Field hospitals&#8217;<\/h2>\n<div data-component=\"text-block\" class=\"sc-3b6b161a-0 dPVOKT\">\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Ms Pritchard was also asked about the seven temporary Nightingale hospitals built quickly, in March and April 2020, across England to treat Covid patients.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Data seen by the inquiry shows the total cost to the taxpayer, including setting up and decommissioning, is now estimated at \u00a3358.5m.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The hospitals \u2013 in Birmingham, Bristol, Exeter, Harrogate, London, Manchester and Sunderland \u2013 treated 141 Covid patients in the first wave of the virus and 1,097 Covid and other patients in the second wave.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">In total, \u00a350.4m was spent on one site, Birmingham, which was never used by patients in the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The site in Bristol also carried out 6,554 assessments for patients from the eye hospital in the city. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Ms Pritchard told the inquiry the programme had still been \u201cuseful\u201d, as the sites had been envisaged as \u201cmilitary field hospitals\u201d at the time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">\u201cWe thought we were doing it to avoid a northern Italy situation,\u201d she said, referring to scenes in Lombardy, where intensive-care units had been overwhelmed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure>\n<div data-component=\"image-block\" class=\"sc-3b6b161a-0 GunZh\">\n<div data-testid=\"image\" class=\"sc-5340b511-1 cMIbKV\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/grey-placeholder-2.png\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 gUePlo hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/338f\/live\/31af8fe0-a0c7-11ef-bdf5-b7cb2fa86e10.png.webp\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Thin, red banner promoting the Politics Essential newsletter with text saying, \u201cGet the latest political analysis and big moments, delivered straight to your inbox every weekday\u201d. There is also an image of the Houses of Parliament.\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA\" \/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>11 November 2024ShareSaveJim ReedHealth reporter, BBC NewsShareSaveCovid inquiryBoris Johnson\u2019s government blocked a request to fund another 10,000 hospital beds at the height of the Covid pandemic, the chief executive of NHS England has said.Amanda Pritchard told the UK Covid-19 Inquiry the decision, made by the Treasury in July 2020, had been \u201cvery disappointing\u201d.Extra beds and staff would have been used to cut waiting lists for planned care and \u201cbuild resilience\u201d going into a second winter wave of the pandemic, she said.The government has said it cannot comment while the inquiry is in progress.Health ministers from the time are expected to give evidence later this month, to the third section of the inquiry, looking at Covid&#8217;s impact on the NHS and healthcare systems across the UK.Ms Pritchard served as NHS England\u2019s chief operating officer from 2019 until she was promoted to chief executive, in August 2021.In her evidence, she said a request had been made to the government, for 10,000 extra permanent, staffed hospital beds, in July 2020.\u2018Very disappointing\u2019The demand had been based on modelling the spread of the virus, along with the need to deal with other pressures that coming winter and resume more planned, or elective, surgery and other treatments for non-Covid patients.But the inquiry heard the Treasury and the prime minister\u2019s private office had refused the request, saying they wanted more use made of temporary Nightingale hospitals along with the private sector.And Ms Prichard had been told the decision would be looked at again as part of a wider spending review expected in the autumn of 2021.She called the decision \u201cvery disappointing\u201d, saying waiting lists for planned NHS treatment in England would be in \u201cquite a different position\u201d today had the extra funding been agreed.\u201cIf we had had that capacity, we could certainly have treated thousands more patients\u2026 as well as being more resilient going into the second wave of the pandemic and into winter more generally,\u201d Ms Prichard said.In the summer of 2020, the NHS in England had a total permanent bed capacity to treat about 95,000 patients in acute hospitals.That was increased by another 4,000 from winter 2023, under a recovery plan agreed by then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.\u2018Completely overwhelming\u2019Later in her evidence, Ms Pritchard said the health service had faced a period of \u201cextreme pressure\u201d in the winter of 2020-21, as another wave of Covid spread across the country.By that point, new treatments had been discovered, including the cheap steroid dexamethasone, and the first Covid vaccines were starting to be rolled out in small numbers.But the level of community transmission at the time meant some intensive-care units were still being pushed \u201cto the brink\u201d and were \u201cright on the edge\u201d of running out of bed space.Nationally, the health service had never had to \u201csystematically limit\u201d access to treatments because hospitals could not cope with demand, Ms Pritchard said.\u201cThat does not mean, though, that it did not feel completely overwhelming to staff at this time in those places &#8211; and it does not mean that the kind of care that was being provided was anything like normal,\u201d she added.&#8217;Field hospitals&#8217;Ms Pritchard was also asked about the seven temporary Nightingale hospitals built quickly, in March and April 2020, across England to treat Covid patients.Data seen by the inquiry shows the total cost to the taxpayer, including setting up and decommissioning, is now estimated at \u00a3358.5m.The hospitals \u2013 in Birmingham, Bristol, Exeter, Harrogate, London, Manchester and Sunderland \u2013 treated 141 Covid patients in the first wave of the virus and 1,097 Covid and other patients in the second wave.In total, \u00a350.4m was spent on one site, Birmingham, which was never used by patients in the pandemic.The site in Bristol also carried out 6,554 assessments for patients from the eye hospital in the city. Ms Pritchard told the inquiry the programme had still been \u201cuseful\u201d, as the sites had been envisaged as \u201cmilitary field hospitals\u201d at the time.\u201cWe thought we were doing it to avoid a northern Italy situation,\u201d she said, referring to scenes in Lombardy, where intensive-care units had been overwhelmed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38525,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40169"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40173,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40169\/revisions\/40173"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}